A night of music, poetry and the spoken word

Westmeath Arts Office and Poetry Ireland present a night of music, poetry and spoken word in the Mullingar Arts Centre on Thursday, October 1.This free event will be hosted by local Slam Poet Marty Mulligan with a magnificent line-up featuring The Poetry Chicks, writer Manchán Mangan, pianist Cathy Byrnes, "the wild headed poet" Pat Carton and Dublin poet Nell Reegan.Kicking off at 8pm, the night will celebrate National Poetry Day and will be one of many events taking place across the nation.The concept of National Poetry Day first began last year with Poetry Ireland bringing in Marty Mulligan to organise the event in Mullingar, in which JP Donleavy, Michael Harding and Suzanne Doyle participated. It was such a success that this year Marty has pushed the boat out even further.Speaking about the upcoming event, Marty invited everyone to come along and have a look and dispel what he claims are "most people's misconceptions about poetry": "I'm hoping the night will break people's misconceptions about poetry. For one, most of the acts appearing on the night performed at Electric Picnic, so this night will be quite different from a typical poetry reading," said Marty."There is a big difference between page poetry and stage poetry. The performer makes the words come alive, and added to music, it is truly entertaining."Each performer has roughly 20 minutes on stage, so the evening will be constantly changing as the night goes on."So why not come along on Thursday, October 1 and experience poetry with a twist at this free event in the Arts Centre!